Woman Sheds Coronavirus For 70 Days Without Symptoms (livescience.com) 126
An anonymous reader quotes a report from LiveScience: A woman with COVID-19 in Washington state shed infectious virus particles for 70 days, meaning she was contagious during that entire time, despite never showing symptoms of the disease, according to a new report. The 71-year-old woman had a type of leukemia, or cancer of the white blood cells, and so her immune system was weakened and less able to clear her body of the new coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2. Although researchers have suspected that people with weakened immune systems may shed the virus for longer than typical, there was little evidence of this happening, until now. The findings contradict guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which say that immunocompromised people with COVID-19 are likely not infectious after 20 days. The new findings suggest "long-term shedding of infectious virus may be a concern in certain immunocompromised patients," the authors wrote in their paper, published in the journal Cell. "The virus was detected in her upper respiratory tract for 105 days; and infectious virus particles -- meaning they were capable of spreading the disease -- were detected for at least 70 days," the report says. "Typically, people with COVID-19 are contagious for about eight days after infection, according to the report. Previously, the longest duration of infectious virus shedding in a COVID-19 patient was reported to be 20 days."
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As someone who is hoping for Biden to win. We really should avoid our Competitive Instincts and not gloat if Biden has a Victory.
In order to heal, the people who voted Blue, will need to keep the moral high ground, and be welcoming to those who may have some differences. Dispite what each of our Eco-chambers say if Biden Wins, it will be a bitter victory.
We cannot let ourselves get too caught up in Us vs Them thinking, but we will need to work together again. The spread of Red vs Blue votes is very stron
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This magical bipartisan cooperation and feel-good circlejerk hasn't ever existed.
The Republicans learned awhile ago that digging in and refusing to cooperate gets them the policies they want and they're rewarded with votes because its what their base wants. Democrats like Biden are all too happy to sell out their own base so they can tell everyone how bipartisan they are. In the end the Republicans get what they want and the Democrats get a pat on the back while they get fucked.
With how much Biden loves goi
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Democrats like Biden are all too happy to sell out their own base
Are you sure they're selling out their base, or might you just be confused about who they are really working for? Maybe the Democrats (and the Republicans for that matter) know exactly who their loyalty is really to and are just very comfortable with a system that keeps roughly 50% of the general population opposed to them.
Neither party is trying to gain the approval of 70, 80, 90+% of the people, they both like the situation where they can screw over roughly half as long as they don't screw over too much m
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If you really believe its democrats that sacrifice their policy agenda for the sake of bipartisanship you have not been paying attention very long. In terms of Republican Administrations trying the big tent approach Regan and Trump have been the outliers. Think hard on how little the conservative agenda was actually pushed during the Nixon, Ford, H. W. Bush, and G. W. Bush administrations and how often they sought to buy minor concessions from the left at extreme political cost. Even when they had congres
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Now look at Trump's '16 - 18' years, how much did Paul Ryan and the GOP House leadership let him actually move anything rightward? Answer very very little. Even the TCJA barely qualifies, its only viewed as some major conservative victory because 'orange man bad' and the media portrayed it that way to hurt the president in anyway possible. It actually quite progressive in terms who it REALLY gave tax breaks and credits too.
It was progressive, but only in states that aren't progressive. In progressive states that rely on income taxes for most of their income, the upper middle class got bent over a barrel, paying significantly higher taxes because of the inability to deduct their income taxes.
In California, for example, the middle class is generally considered to extend to $350,000 because of the high cost of living. The income threshold where you start losing your ability to deduct income tax is only $142,508. And that's on
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In California, for example, the middle class is generally considered to extend to $350,000 because of the high cost of living. The income threshold where you start losing your ability to deduct income tax is only $142,508. And that's only the threshold if you aren't also paying property taxes or vehicle license plate taxes, because those come out of the same $10,000 deductibility pool.
Its hardly someone in WV fault CA has high property taxes. There was no reason States like CA should be able to effectively transfer payments that should go the federal government to their own coffers. That was just STUPID, talk about people that SHOULD NEVER WORK IN GOVERNMENT GEEZ
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In California, for example, the middle class is generally considered to extend to $350,000 because of the high cost of living. The income threshold where you start losing your ability to deduct income tax is only $142,508. And that's only the threshold if you aren't also paying property taxes or vehicle license plate taxes, because those come out of the same $10,000 deductibility pool.
Its hardly someone in WV fault CA has high property taxes.
First, California's property taxes are relatively low. It's their income tax that's high. It's also hardly relevant whether someone in West Virginia has any influence over California's tax rate. Why should someone in West Virginia care if Californians get to deduct their income taxes or not? What's far for someone in West Virginia is fair for someone in California, and the federal government artificially penalizing people in California for living in a state that has a high cost of living is unjust, peri
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No you did earn it. You generated the wealth. The government is taking it. That is your 'agreement' for living in the state. If you want to make an agreement with your state to take a large percentage of your income, that is your problem and problem of your fellow voters.
You can spend YOUR money in your state to do stuff in your back yard as much as you want and however you want. You should not be able to get the federal government to rebate you for that at everyone elses expense.
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No you did earn it. You generated the wealth. The government is taking it.
We'll have to agree to disagree here, but my opinion is actually backed by precedent, and yours isn't. In particular, I don't pay federal income tax on the money that came out of my paycheck for Medicare, nor the money that came out for Social Security. Why should state income tax not get the same treatment as other income taxes, and thus be removed from my federal AGI? Your position is entirely arbitrary.
That is your 'agreement' for living in the state. If you want to make an agreement with your state to take a large percentage of your income, that is your problem and problem of your fellow voters.
Ostensibly I could vote to end Medicare and Social Security, too. Your attempt to blame the voters
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And yet somehow the overton window keeps sliding to the left.
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I don't think Biden is selling out his party, but I do think some Democrats believe this because they want the party to further to the left and not towards the center. I believe the US populace is really somewhat bell shaped, the mass in the middle gets courted during elections but mostly ignored within the parties all other times. Both sides are baffled why there are undecided voters and moderates and centrists and why they don't just move far left or far right to join with the party leadership.
What we h
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Without understanding the root cause of the problem, we cannot know the way to a solution. What we do know is that the moral high ground hasn't accomplished anything. Also, suggesting that "each" has an "echo chamber" contributes to the problem. Both-sides-ism doesn't help, it just points out that the good guys aren't perfect.
We have a problem with devolving into lizard-brained thinking. The solution to that is not "working together" with lizard-brained thinkers.
Being petty in victory is absolutely mean
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Without understanding the root cause of the problem, we cannot know the way to a solution. What we do know is that the moral high ground hasn't accomplished anything. Also, suggesting that "each" has an "echo chamber" contributes to the problem. Both-sides-ism doesn't help, it just points out that the good guys aren't perfect.
The only solution is to have enough parties that "both-sides-ism" doesn't work.
The solution is an absolute intolerance for lizard-brained thinking. We've never had that, but modern communications make it more essential than ever. We've always had liars and those vulnerable to those lies, but it has never been easier to exploit that. Being nice is irrelevant.
That just makes the problem worse, because the people who think in that fashion will incorrectly feel that they are being persecuted for their beliefs, rather than for blindly following a specific party whose members' behaviors often run significantly counter to their beliefs, and thus will dig their heels in even more.
No, what we need is a diversity of parties, a diversity of voices, each providing a different perspective, with
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As someone who is hoping for Biden to win. We really should avoid our Competitive Instincts and not gloat if Biden has a Victory.
While I agree with you, it seems to be always the same side that takes the moral high ground. It's not just a Trump problem, who's this just elected 'R' who posted an "Up your dems" as a victory message ? They are not running to represent americans. They are running to 'fuck the libtards'...
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I don't know what possible "justification" anyone could have for gloating anyway, the fact that Trump can be so flagrantly and manifestly evil and yet still almost managed to get reelected is not a sign of a great moral reawakening in the USA.
I think rather the Democrats should take a lesson and stop running candidates that are so meh. It's obvious you're not going to get right wingers to switch sides, so you might as well go for energizing left wingers and getting as many of them out to vote as you can.
An
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Ranked choice or approval voting. Do it. Let "meh" Democrats, far-left Democrats, conservative Republicans, Trump Republicans and everything else all be on the same ballot, but without all the problems of vote-splitting. That would make Mehs harmless, but also available to reluctantly rule when everyone else lets us down.
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Was Trump right about one thing? (Score:3)
Obviously Trump was not correct to say that Covid-19 would leave the news on November 4th, but maybe...
But first, I want to reply with a few thoughts to the comment from jellomizer with the Subject: Re:Election.
(1) The Subject is feeding an AC FP troll. Off topic, too. At least he could have changed the Subject to something substantive and bridging. I went one way, but based on jellomizer's tone, perhaps something like "Subject: Time to heal from Covid-19 AND..."
(2) I wish he had included some more concrete
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Nobody should look at the job that lies ahead and gloat over having to do it.
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Yup, I'm a centrist. I'm happy for Biden but it's because he's also a bit of a centrist and not on the far left, and because Trump is such a daily disaster. When Biden wins it will be a sigh of relief and everyone can sleep in and stop refreshing their browsers.
I was surprised on a call in when one caller complained that Democrats would have done so much better if they had nominated someone more popular, like Bernie. Bernie was not that popular, he's only popular on those much further to the left. But i
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Fuck em. Whoever committed crimes during the Trump crime spree must pay the price.
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Sadly, it will probably be Trump who runs in 2024
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The GOP will have at least 4 years to learn from their mistakes, clean up their shit, stop being assholes, and maybe, just maybe, get back to being proper 'conservatives' instead of being 'neo-conservatives', a distortion of what being Republican used to be about.
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He'll be too old to run by that time, just like Biden is too old now. Ivanka might run, who knows, but I wonder whether she'll be able to get as much support as her father did. It also depends very much on how the coming 4 years will go. If Harris tries to go soft on Iran, hard on Israel, endorses more globalisation, opens the borders, give in to China... the "democrats" will be a goner just like the republicans are. This might actually be a good thing, one of the main reasons why I - as an outsider without
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The problem is it isn't a real split in the population, but in the media. One side says one thing, the other side says that it is a lie, and it is this instead.
We have 24 hour Cable news that fills its time with Commentary, and "Debates" that are designed to be entertaining compared to informative. So if your Audience is one side or the other. You get people involved to make your side look like the rational one, while the other side is just a bunch of idiots.
We have social media, that is trying to sell a
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The problem is it isn't a real split in the population, but in the media. One side says one thing, the other side says that it is a lie, and it is this instead.
We have 24 hour Cable news that fills its time with Commentary, and "Debates" that are designed to be entertaining compared to informative.
The media caused a large percent of the divide in the country by trying to appear "fair and balanced" and failing badly at that.
You can't give both sides a platform to shout falsehoods with no fact checking.
You can't give a fringe candidate or idea a platform across from a mainstream candidate or idea without giving that fringe candidate or idea far more visibility and power than they would otherwise have.
Real journalism is fact-checking. It's not sitting some lunatic across from someone sensible and lettin
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At this point Democrats are the Conservative party; Republicans are the Fascist party.
Re:Election (Score:5, Interesting)
It's almost always been divided in such ways, though with less antagonism. It does go with cycles though, a few decades of "we're all in this together" followed by a few decades of "get of my lawn!"
I think people are getting too caught up in politics. This is their surrogate religion almost. They're putting all their loyalty into a party rather than into the country or family or friends or whatever. And the attitude can lead to treating those with different views as enemies. That's the time to just back off, chill out, and get a good nap.
I remember in the 70s when we'd have both democrats and republicans going to the same church. No big deal. And the churches didn't tell you that it was a sin to vote the wrong way. Even when Nixon was being impeached, I remember democrats and republicans joking with each other over it.
However, just a few years earlier there was a lot of political violence, especially in the segregationist south but not only there. There was a lot of violence in the 60s, from the left and the right. And in the 20s with the growth of the KKK and anarchists. Divisive politics started immediately after the country was formed, we even have a currently popular musical touching on this. But the good news is because we don't remember the past divisiveness much means that todays divisiveness will fade and diminish over time as well.
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Fun fact, Pew Research actually does somewhat scientific polling.
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
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Mentioning "polling" and anything related to science or accuracy is not advisable right now given the disastrous failure of just about all the polls - again. They got it wrong in 2016, they got it wrong in 2020. They get it wrong here in Sweden as well, this is not a problem which is limited to the USA. The more polarised a country or community gets, the less value polls have since people will not want to give an answer which goes against the dominant narrative for fear of repercussions. Those polls are gar
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Don't forget the Trump family motto! (Score:2)
Trump's motto:
Winning isn't everything! There's also lying and cheating and stealing. If you do it right, you can even kill your fans at super-spreader events and they'll still LOVE you to death!
That's why the so-called Republicans are so afraid to help with any movement towards a peaceful transition. Trump will tweet them out as cowards and Trumpenstein's monster mob will try to fricassee them. You don't have to be a mindless and unprincipled coward to support Trump, but it sure helps.
Re:Don't forget the Trump family motto! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Mostly the ACK, but I fear you're too optimistic.
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This just in:
110,000 votes for Trump were just found in each of the following states GA, PA, VA, NV, WI, and MI. Biden's vote totals remain unchanged.
If you are a Democrat and you said "Bullshit!"
Now you get it
Get what? If that had actually happened, it would have been incredibly suspicious, as it would suggest someone was trying to sneak over 100k fraudulent votes into the system. The election counting process is carefully monitored by various election monitors from both major parties, so realistically, there's really no way anyone could hide 100k votes in an attempt to keep them from getting counted unless both Republican and Democrat election monitors all agreed that Trump needs to go, which would be a much
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This comment was marked "Troll" by someone.
That someone clearly did not understand it, or felt accused of something, or felt guilt.
If only there were a truly neutral, non-partisan instance which could take a fine-toothed comb over all those disputed states and do a recount out in the open - with observers from both parties, able to actually observe what is going on, without boarding up the windows so people can not see in, without sending home observers from one party while the people from the other party a
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The thing is, it's sad, but these posts aren't off-topic. Our president managed to politicize what should have been a matter of scientific discussion, and as a result, it is pretty much impossible to avoid politics in any coronavirus discussion. Don't like that? Convince everybody you know to elect better human beings. :-)
Covid Connie (Score:1)
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sssh you can't say that. Biden is probably the next president. Sexual gratification is the most important of all human rights now, didn't you get the memo. Does not matter how much disease you spread, how many babies have to die. Why even covid we all have to social distance and form pods except if you want bone random tender dates than hey maybe just wear a mask, Dr Doom says that's cool!
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Every homosexual on PreP.
Only the homosexuals, huh? Gonna have to draw us a map to that conclusion.
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Only the homosexuals, huh? Gonna have to draw us a map to that conclusion.
Well you start at "Jesus says love thy neighbour" and "gays are evil" is at the first turning apparently so the map is simple. It helps if you are in a non metric space however.
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Nobody else is spreading both drug resistant HIV and COVID-19 at the same time.
no contradiction (Score:5, Insightful)
The findings contradict guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which say that immunocompromised people with COVID-19 are likely not infectious after 20 days.
There is no contradiction. The CDC guideline uses the term 'likely' to indicate a certain level of uncertainty. There is a large amount of variation in reactions to disease, the woman in the article is likely an outlier. (see? not certain, just likely)
Re:no contradiction (Score:5, Insightful)
A one-in-50,000,000 occurrence is pretty much the definition of outlier. It's like the person who was definitively confirmed to have been re-infected (by a different strain of SARS-CoV-2): Not surprising that it happened to someone, somewhere, but at least a little reassuring that it isn't more common.
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In an pandemic with fifty million documented cases the tails of the probability distribution are extremely long.
Events inevitably occur that are so rare that they have no practical significance to the public. They neither augur the furture course of the pandemic nor change anything the public ought to be doing. But fear draws eyeballs and eyeballs are valuable, so you can be sure the public will hear all about these outlier events.
Of course events like people getting reinfected with the virus or asymptomat
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To be fair, at the time nobody expected a Spanish Inquisi... I mean second wave of Spanish Flu.
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To be fair, at the time nobody expected a Spanish Inquisi... I mean second wave of Spanish Flu.
To be scientific, let me know when a virus gives a shit about politics, now or then.
Was she called Mary? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Was she called Mary? Add one more to the list (Score:2)
Is that consistent? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is that consistent? (Score:5, Informative)
probably, yes!
Most of the most easily observable symptoms to disease like covid-19 are in fact immune responses.
The coughing, fever, congestion, lung tissue inflation etc, are all basically the bodies various attempts to fight the thing.
Assuming a weakened immune system does not mount a strong a response, than what is left is things like damage to the oxygen exchange tissue in the lungs etc which may be subtle until its pretty severe, and things like fatigue which a cancer patient probably already suffers from and wont be able to separate from further fatigue possibly related to the covid. I am not a doctor but from what I know about all this stuff, it seems to pass he basic common sense smell test.
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Assuming a weakened immune system does not mount a strong a response, than what is left is things like damage to the oxygen exchange tissue in the lungs etc which may be subtle until its pretty severe... .
... and is also likely entirely caused by an overactive immune response. And even if it isn't, coronavirus can attack cells in any tissues, not just the lungs, so it is possible that her infection was introduced primarily through other exposed tissues (nose, throat, intestines), in which case it should affect the lungs no more than any other tissue.
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Most of the worst symptoms are from an overreaction of the immune system. That's why kids are relatively unaffected in general. To someone who is immunocompromised, it's often a cold virus and little more. But "immunocompromised" is quite a blanket term, so it wouldn't affect all of them the same.
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Her immune system is weakened yet she has no symptoms!
I don't think you understand how the body works, at all.
When you get a fever, is that because the pathogen increases your temperature? No, it isn't, it's the body's response to try and get rid of the pathogen.
When you get a runny nose, is that because the pathogen is making your nasal secretary glands hyperactive? No, it isn't, it's your body trying to get rid of the pathogen and protect your exposed skin.
When you get AIDS and *die*, is that because HIV is destroying your body with evil machinations? No, it
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Her immune system is weakened yet she has no symptoms!
I few years back encountered a kidney transplant on anti-rejection medications, who caught the flu. Mild persistent fever, but otherwise not really any symptoms, patient said he'd been walking around with a fever for weeks, but otherwise felt pretty normal. Anyway, the guy's influenza antigen testing was also positive for quite a few weeks after the start of his flu -- we didn't prove actual shedding of viable virus (using viral culture techniques), but I wouldn't be surprised if he'd been doing so the en
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This just shows how minor the disease is, if an immunocompromised senior citizen can survive it
Maybe. Or maybe it shows that the disease perverts the immune response [uchicago.edu], and a healthier person is more likely to come to harm.
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Your article is about cytokine storms, which is pretty much the opposite of what was going on with the woman under discussion.
Right, because her immune system was depressed.
We have almost a year of observation of the virus/disease, and the exact opposite of what you say is true.
Well, I admit I didn't write it very well, but your claim is overblown. If Covid diddles the immune system in such a way that it causes harm, then a suppressed immune system might actually be a benefit.
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It might be a benefit for a time. A virus still kills cells - it'll just take longer to become noticable.
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This just shows how minor the disease is, if an immunocompromised senior citizen can survive it. Apart from humans, so many animals can spread it, that by now, any mechanical measures against these viruses are in vain.
Actually, the major mechanism of death involves the immune system. Immune system overreaction triggers body damage [sharp.com] which e.g. allows pneumonia to take off. That's one of the reason that immune suppressive drugs such as steroids have been used against COVID-19. This means that some immune compromised patients may actually have an easier time than some fully healthy patients.
Only a mass immunization will bring it under better control.
That's not a proven strategy yet. It's very likely to be a great one in a year or so's time, however the only strategy that has work
70 days? (Score:2)
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Well, at least they could have her not shed the virus?
I can't find the link now, but I read a story about how Trump tried to clean her out with bleach but the Biden-supporting doctors wouldn't let him. He did all he could, so it's clearly Biden's fault that she continued to be contagious. So yeah, you're right, they clearly wanted her to continue shedding.
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Seriously? And how would "they" do that?
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She was living in a nursing home. The protocol is to isolate patients testing positive and feed them pancakes.
Not because pancakes are any kind of therapy. But it's the only food they can slide under the door.
Not surprising... (Score:2)
Mild Cold/flu symptoms continue on in immune compromised people for long periods as well. We just never looked at it with this much intensity before. What's more important is the concentrations she was shedding.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Some US stats on hospital acquired infections: around 2 million a year, and 99K deaths!
So yes, going to the hospital is all by itself about as dangerous as COVID in ordinary times.
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why is that? I mean, you have declared the epidemic over just 6 weeks ago
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
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If you're in a general upper age risk factor, don't schedule routine tests and screenings during cold and flu season. And during a pandemic year, just avoid it entirely unless you have new concerning symptoms. That's about the end of it. Flu and other non-recent diseases are enough reason to not be in a hospital when you don't have to. Wearing a mask indoors won't help much if you're in a room with a constant high density of sick people and insufficient ventilation.
That doesn't mean that paranoia is hea
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As long as there are hospitals, e.g. in Texas, run and managed by Trump supporters, where the boss advices "greeting personal" and "ordinary daycare nurses" not to wear masks. Punished by firing if he sees them with a mask. As long as that bullcrap can happen in a hospital, I would not go there either for a routine check up. Actually I would not go there ever gain.
Why do I know this random anecdotes? The daughter of one of my acquaintances works there. She is German. So if she gets fired she has to leave th
Re:And she is alive, Who Cares (Score:5, Informative)
So we have record cases and its not a big deal anymore.
Funny how at the beginning the hospitals were flooded and not anymore and yet apparently we have record number of cases.
Lets move on to the next story...
Firstly, the hospitals here are pretty flooded. But also, treatment has moved on and if you're going to recover you'll probably not spend as much time in hospital now as you would have in May.
But the deaths are still piling up.
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Record cases. And yet one major ventilator manufacturer is shutting down [sfgate.com] some manufacturing capacity due to a lack of demand.
I'm not sure what to think about this (Score:4, Funny)
Sheds? (Score:2)
Do they mean "carried" as in "she was a carrier"?
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Carriers don't always shed. Although I don't know if anyone is certain about the Coronavirus life cycle, there are viruses that can go dormant in a persons body. And then revive from time to time, making them shedders. But they are always carriers.
Oh goodie! (Score:2)
A modern typhoid mary!
lamb with two heads (Score:1)
Lamb born with two head!
North Brother Island (Score:2)
It was good enough for Typhoid Mary and so I guess also for Covid-Claire.
A single case doesn't contradict the guidelines (Score:2)
The guidelines are statistical in nature. Enough people are not contagious after 20 days for it to be considered safe to assume they're not anymore. There's always outliers.
It's a population level risk assessment, on the individual level there are no guarantees.
what is a virus? (Score:2)
A virus is a protein "machine" that hijacks cells' protein-making engines to assemble more viruses. A successful virus wouldn't need to turn your lungs into mush, nor does it benefit triggering a huge immune response.
Someone who is under a constant state of inflammation might go for weeks (months!) with a virus that neither increased to the point of overwhelming the body, nor to decrease to the point where the infection resolves. A state of equilibrium is possible under the right circumstances, but doesn't